The "Middle East and Terrorism" Blog was created in order to supply information about the implication of Arab countries and Iran in terrorism all over the world. Most of the articles in the blog are the result of objective scientific research or articles written by senior journalists.

From the Ethics of the Fathers: "He [Rabbi Tarfon] used to say, it is not incumbent upon you to complete the task, but you are not exempt from undertaking it."

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Friday, September 12, 2014

Everything has now gone wrong for
Abbas. The destruction in Gaza matches the destruction of the Second
Intifada, precisely what Abbas deplored in respect of Arafat. Hamas
exploited the formation of the unity government for a scheme to
overthrow Abbas in the West Bank. Haniyeh is projected to defeat him by
61% to 32% in the upcoming election for the Palestinian presidency.Israeli politicians who propose to renew peace negotiations, with
Abbas or whomever, are advised to make two basic stipulations. First,
that Israel will negotiate only with a Palestinian government that
officially recognizes its obligation to demilitarize Gaza. Second, that
no agreements can be signed until the Palestinians hold the projected
elections for their parliament and presidency -- and the outcome is
known.

The recent hostilities between Hamas and Israel have prompted various Israeli figures, in the governing coalition as well as in the opposition,
to advocate an enhanced role for Mahmoud Abbas, the President of the
Palestinian Authority [PA], in an eventual solution for Gaza. The
implausibility of this idea has been pointed out elsewhere.
What both the proponents and the critics of this idea have not asked,
however, is a more fundamental question: To what extent was Abbas
complicit in the aggression of Hamas?

For sure, Abbas did once criticize Hamas
when the organization began to fire rockets at Israel early in July
2014. Hamas officials thereupon branded him "a criminal" and "a Likud
member." From then on, Abbas denounced only Israel. Moreover, the envoys
of his PA sought to mobilize international pressure to stop Israel from
mounting a ground operation to destroy the tunnels that Hamas had built
into Israeli territory. In the intermittent negotiations moderated by
Egypt to establish a lasting ceasefire, the delegation from Abbas's
Fatah faction endorsed all the preposterous demands made by Hamas upon
Israel as a condition for ending hostilities.

Worse than that, Palestinian Media Watch has documented a stream of statements
by Fatah officials that expressed identification with Hamas aggression.
Criticism of Hamas did not emerge again until Hamas began to execute
alleged collaborators without trial. Only then did Abbas aide Tayeb
Abdel Rahim denounce Hamas
for perpetrating "cold-blooded murders." With good reason: Hamas had
confined known Fatah activists under house arrest and these would be
obvious targets for summary execution.

When Abbas met Khaled Mashaal, the Hamas supremo, in Qatar during
August 21-22, international speculation was that he would plead with
Mashaal for a fresh ceasefire. Quite wrong. The meeting ended with a joint call
to the United Nations for "a resolution that would define a timetable
for the end of Israel's occupation and the establishment of an
independent Palestinian state." More significantly, the two leaders
emphasized that the Palestinian unity government formed by Fatah and
Hamas in June "represents all the Palestinian people and looks after
their interests."

That is, this became a meeting of the founders of the unity
government, in order to review developments and make further joint
plans. It confirms that the decision of Abbas to form the unity
government was the starting point for all subsequent developments. In
order to evaluate Abbas's motives for taking that decision, let us
recall three well-established facts about him.

First of all, he is Dr. Mahmoud Abbas, having in 1982 earned a
doctorate in Moscow with a PhD dissertation denying the Holocaust, which
was published as a book
in 1984. Here he claimed that the Holocaust was a product of
Nazi-Zionist collaboration aimed at driving Jews out of Europe into
Mandatory Palestine. He also suggested that the number of Jewish victims
may have been under a million, but that the Zionists inflated the
figures in order to gain support for Israel. More recently he has made
statements deploring the Holocaust as an "unforgivable crime against the
Jewish nation," yet without repudiating his doctoral thesis.

Second, Abbas regarded Yasser Arafat's decision to launch the Second
Palestinian Intifada in September 2000 as a ghastly mistake that
inflicting great suffering on the Palestinian population without making
significant political gains. But thirdly, Abbas and the Fatah movement
in general have never differed from either Arafat or Hamas about the
ultimate aim of Palestinian nationalism: the disappearance of Israel and
the creation of a Palestinian state in the whole area of Mandatory
Palestine.

As explained elsewhere,
all the Palestinian factions are agreed upon three fundamental
"national issues": 1) Israel must withdraw to the lines preceding the
Six Day War; 2) a Palestinian state must be created with Jerusalem as
its capital; 3) all the Palestinian refugees of 1948 and 1967, together
with their millions of descendants, must be allowed to return to where
they were living up to 1947. Of those three Palestinian "issues," the
so-called "international community" is obviously sympathetic to the
first two but does not take the third one seriously, regarding it as
absurd.

For the Palestinians, on the other hand, the return of the refugees –
which implies the creation of an Arab majority in Israel – is the most
important issue. Hamas and its Islamist confederates long ago drew the
conclusion that all peace negotiations with Israel are futile; at most
an armed truce with Israel for a fixed period of time is permissible.
Abbas and his Fatah faction did believe that negotiations with Israel
could be useful if they led to a "two-state solution" in which the first
two issues are decided in favor of the Palestinians, but without a
Palestinian renunciation of the "right of return." That would enable the
Palestinians to establish an internationally recognized state whose
supreme aim would be to work for the return of the refugees, whether in
international forums or by a return to violence.

The counter-strategy of the Netanyahu government was to demand that
in a peace settlement the Palestinians must recognize Israel as a Jewish
state, a demand that implicitly excludes the Palestinian "right of
return." By March 2014, Abbas realized that his strategy had failed.
Previously, he had been using security collaboration with Israel to
weaken Hamas, his chief rival. Now he chose the reverse tactic: by
forming a Palestinian unity government supported by Hamas as well as
Fatah, he hoped to use Hamas to weaken Israel to the point of succumbing
to his demands.

This was a catastrophic miscalculation on the part of Abbas. Hamas
had its own reasons for joining a unity government. Above all, Hamas had
been made bankrupt
by the Egyptian decision to eliminate the tunnels between Egypt and
Gaza, so it relied on the promise that the unity government would pay
the long overdue salaries of its 40,000 civil servants. When that failed
to happen, Hamas was left with nothing but its massive arsenal of
weapons, to which it desperately resorted. For fifty days it mounted an
attack upon Israel while proclaiming an absurd list of demands for a
ceasefire, above all the payment of those salaries.

Everything has now gone wrong for Abbas. The destruction in Gaza
matches the destruction of the Second Intifada, precisely what Abbas
deplored in respect of Arafat. Furthermore, as the Israeli Security
Service (Shin Bet) has discovered, Hamas exploited the formation of the
unity government for a scheme to overthrow Abbas in the West Bank, while brutally injuring Fatah operatives in Gaza. Indeed, when Abbas was plotting further tactics against Israel with Mashaal in Qatar, he simultaneously moaned to the Emir of Qatar, the financial godfather of Hamas, about Mashaal's plots against himself.

Worst of all, an opinion poll
shows that the Palestinian public -- in its characteristic mode of
collective insanity -- accepts Hamas's claim of "victory" over Israel.
Whereas until recently Abbas enjoyed clear superiority over Hamas's
Ismail Haniyeh in opinion polls, now Haniyeh is projected to defeat him
by 61% to 32% in the upcoming election for the Palestinian presidency.
Remember that the agreement to form a unity government stipulated that
fresh elections for both the Palestinian parliament and the presidency
should take place within six months. The same poll ascribes even greater
popularity to Haniyeh in the West Bank than in Gaza (66% versus 53%)
and predicts that Haniyeh would also defeat the erstwhile Palestinian
favorite, imprisoned terrorist murderer Marwan Barghouti.

In another misjudgment, Abbas finally opened his mouth
to denounce Hamas's responsibility for the destruction of Gaza just
days before that poll was published. That is, he was silent when the
destruction could have been prevented, but chose to criticize it
precisely when the broad Palestinian public had euphorically decided
that it was a price worth paying.

Obviously, Abbas is a man whose policies have failed, who is out of
touch with his own people, and who is due to be replaced -- probably by a
Hamas candidate -- within months. Why should any Israeli vainly
negotiate with him in these circumstances?

The answer is to be found in an article
published by Gatestone Institute on June 13, before Hamas started its
rocket campaign. In view of the formation of the Palestinian unity
government on June 2, it was pointed out:

"The essential point that Israel needs to grasp, and to
make understood internationally at every opportunity, is this: President
Abbas will not become responsible for rockets in Gaza only when they
are fired; he has made himself responsible for those rockets -- and for
their elimination -- now. The new Palestinian government restores
the rule of the PA to Gaza. So under its jurisdiction fall the rockets
in Gaza and – for that matter – also the network of tunnels that Hamas
has built with the aim of penetrating into Israel and kidnapping more
Israelis."

The conclusion drawn was that any financial support from abroad for
the unity government should be predicated on its agreement to eliminate
the rockets and tunnels under international supervision, on the model of
the elimination of Syria's chemical weapons. In other words, this was
the first formulation of what is now called the "demilitarization of
Gaza" – a recommendation made already weeks before the hostilities
erupted. (The demand was repeated in articles published on June 24 and July 16.)

In mid-July, the demand was adopted by the Israeli government. It was
subsequently endorsed by two meetings of the foreign ministers of the
European Union and by the U.S. President, Secretary of State and
Secretary of Defense in various statements.

Unfortunately, their statements have mostly taken the form of
demanding the disarmament of all the terrorist groups in Gaza, but
without explicitly saying who should be responsible for doing it.
Regarding Syria, the demand was pinned upon its President Assad, who was
told to expect very unpleasant consequences if he rejected it.
Therefore, in the present instance the demand should be imposed upon the
Palestinian unity government. Moreover, neither the EU nor the US needs
to commit a single soldier or airplane to imposing that demand: they
can -- as was pointed out in the recent Gatestone articles -- promise
unpleasant consequences by threatening to suspend financial support for
the Palestinian government.

Israel, as it happens, has already embarked in this direction by withholding money
from the tax revenues that it collects and passes on to the Palestinian
Authority, ostensibly to cover unpaid bills to Israeli utilities.
Israel just has to hint that this will continue until the Palestinian
government acknowledges its obligation to demilitarize Gaza.

This is all the more urgent, since the Palestinian government has now recommitted itself
to paying the 40,000 Hamas officials in Gaza in addition to the 70,000
PA officials who have been receiving salaries in Gaza since 2007 without
actually working. In other words, the proposal is to pay 110,000
employees for the work that is currently done by 40,000 – and this out
of a Palestinian budget that is already (as usual) in deep deficit.

As for Israeli politicians who propose to renew peace negotiations,
with Abbas or whomever, they are advised to make two basic stipulations.
First, that Israel will negotiate only with a Palestinian government
that officially recognizes its obligation to demilitarize Gaza. Second,
that no agreements can be signed until the Palestinians hold the
projected elections for their parliament and presidency -- and the
outcome is known.

All the above might also deflate the Palestinian public's delusions
of victory. Palestinians will sober up only when they grasp that they
reduced Gaza to ruins in vain and that without disarmament they will
just have to live in those ruins. To allow them reconstruction before
that will merely encourage fresh outbreaks of militant folly.Malcolm LoweSource: http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4679/evaluating-mahmoud-abbas Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

by Matthew VadumQuestions about the Obama administration’s decision to let helpless Americans die in the terrorist attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya two years ago won’t go away anytime soon.

But that won’t stop former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who desperately wants to be the next president, from trying to make the whole Benghazi episode that happened under her watch go away. So far the Clinton operation isn’t working.Charles Woods, father of Navy SEAL Tyrone Woods, who died trying to fend off the Islamist attack, said he can’t understand why the Obama administration won’t answer even the most basic questions about what happened in Libya on Sept. 11, 2012.“When a mission is compromised, the warriors, they know they will be extracted,” said Woods, who was also a Navy SEAL himself. “During all of the hours that this attack happened, there was no attempt made to rescue.”The Obama administration’s refusal to launch such a rescue mission stands in stark contrast to its willingness to swap Bowe Bergdahl, a U.S. soldier who defected to the Taliban in Afghanistan, for five members of the terrorist high command. The White House and Secretary of State John Kerry justify the cynical Bergdahl transaction by loudly proclaiming that it is U.S. policy never to leave a man behind.But to President Obama, it is standing policy to leave Americans to their doom when a rescue mission interferes with reelection plans. At the time of the attack, the Obama White House made a conscious, calculated decision to let American officials perish overseas, fully expecting the incurious pro-Obama media to ignore what really happened.In the midst of a heated reelection campaign, Obama had claimed al-Qaeda was decimated and on the verge of annihilation. When it turned out the terrorist organization was doing just fine, he decided to scapegoat a YouTube video instead of admitting that al-Qaeda was roaring back, stronger than ever, under his watch.For two weeks after the attack the Obama administration said over and over again that the incident in Benghazi was inspired by a low-quality anti-Islam video on YouTube. The American resident who made the video that virtually no one watched was jailed on the thinnest of legal pretexts after then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton vowed to grieving relatives over the flag-draped remains of the four dead men to get the video maker she claimed caused the attacks. White House adviser Susan Rice went on TV to back up the administration’s lie that the assault was related to a video. Eventually the administration acknowledged it was a terrorist attack.During the attack, U.S. forces were in place in nearby Sicily, an hour or so away by air, but the order to fly to Benghazi in an attempt to rescue the besieged staff at the complex never came. That order was never issued by President Obama, because he knew it would reveal his policy of appeasement towards Islamic totalitarians to be in shambles as the Middle East and North Africa fell into the hands of America’s enemies.“We still do not have the answers we need — the truthful answers we need as to why these American heroes were left to die,” Woods said at a press conference yesterday just outside the U.S. Capitol.Today is the second anniversary of the election-season terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya, and the 12th anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.The White House has been stonewalling ever since the attack started in Libya on Sept. 11, 2012, first advancing the false narrative that the assault had something to do with an anti-Islam video nobody saw. After the lie that incensed locals spontaneously came together to hit the consulate fell apart, the Obama administration has been blame-shifting furiously.Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) said the controversy won’t go away till answers are forthcoming.

“Now some are tempted to ask, ‘What difference at this point does it make,’” Gohmert said, echoing the infamous comment uttered by then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as she attempted to deflect responsibility for the deaths of four Americans killed during the Benghazi attack.“And the answer should come swift and clear anytime it’s asked, because until we know what happened, we can’t avoid the same mistakes in the future,” he said.The Obama administration “is following the example that was learned in the Clinton years, that if you keep refusing to provide documents, keep refusing to give answers, then eventually you can get to the point where you can say that’s old news,” Gohmert said.“And the mainstream media can sometimes be compliant and say ‘Well it is old news,’” he said. “Well, it’s not old news because we still don’t have the answers.”Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton said internal State Department documents have surfaced that show that three months before the Benghazi attack security guards were fleeing their posts “out of fear of their safety.” Those documents consisted of emails obtained by Judicial Watch under the the Freedom of Information Act, which is “at this time, is the best way to get information out of this administration — an administration that is committed to secrecy and stonewalling on something that would have taken down previous administrations,” Fitton said. “Which is the lying by a president and his officials, to protect his reelection, about a terrorist attack that killed four Americans.”In an exclusive interview with FrontPage magazine after the press conference, Fitton said the narrative invented by White House aide Ben Rhodes after the attack “was used to guide [Ambassador] Susan Rice in her appearances on the Sunday morning talk shows” after Sept. 11, 2012.The Rhodes narrative was crafted to make the president look good, not to provide an honest accounting of what happened in Benghazi, Fitton said.

“But other emails also released along with the Rhodes email show as the attack was happening, the State Department, presumably Susan Rice and people around her, were getting real-time information, they were concerned about a kidnapping, there was talk of an attack, no talk of demonstrations, no talk of videos.”

“It was what it was, which was an attack,” he said. The government had intelligence at the time that someone using the ambassador’s phone, issued by the State Department security operation, who was calling from the hospital saying that Stevens was alive and well.”If the ambassador was alive and well at the hospital, why wasn’t an attempt made to rescue him, Fitton asked rhetorically.“That piece of information is as outrageous as anything else we found, including the Rhodes email, because it showed the State Department had intelligence the ambassador was alive and nothing was done to rescue him we now know.”And the American people still don’t know what Chris Stevens was doing in Benghazi, helpless and far away from his home base in the capital city of Tripoli.One plausible theory is that Stevens may have been overseeing some kind of covert Obama-authorized weapon-smuggling operation in Libya.Stevens was “gun-running to jihadists,” investigative reporter Aaron Klein told radio host Michael Savage yesterday. Klein is author of the soon-to-be-released book,The Real Benghazi Story: What the White House and Hillary Don’t Want You To Know.How Stevens died remains a mystery. Although last month the Obama administration rushed to order a completely superfluous federal autopsy on the body of teenaged hoodlum Michael Brown that added nothing new to what was known about how the Ferguson, Mo.-based cop-attacker died, the Obama administration hasn’t released autopsy results for Stevens.Like the deposed Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi, the ambassador was savagely sexually abused and murdered by adherents of the so-called religion of peace, according to news reports at the time that the Obama administration has not refuted.Whether Americans will ever find out the truth while President Obama remains in power remains an open question.Matthew Vadum is an award-winning investigative reporter and the author of the book, "Subversion Inc.: How Obama’s ACORN Red Shirts Are Still Terrorizing and Ripping Off American Taxpayers."Source: http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/matthew-vadum/patriots-vow-to-find-benghazi-answers/ Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

What’s in a name? That which we call ISIS by any other name would smell as foul.

It
is puzzling that President Barack Obama has preferred the appellation
"ISIL." It does make a difference. The variously named terrorist group
began in 2003-4 as al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), after the invasion of Iraq
by the U.S. Its original leader was killed in an air strike in 2006,
and he was succeeded in 2010 by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. A new name, ISIS,
was adopted in April 2013, reflecting what was supposed to be the
merger of AQI with the Syrian based al-Qaeda affiliate the Nusra Front.
A break between the two groups took place a few months later.

Translating
Arab phrases into English has its pitfalls, but it is generally agreed
that ISIS means the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (Syria). Most
commentators used this definition. However, President Obama on numerous
occasions, especially his speech at West Point on June 19, 2014, has
referred to the group as ISIL (the Islamic State of Iraq and the
Levant). There is an obvious political reason why he prefers “the
Levant” to “Syria.”

Obama’s
use of the term “Levant” is surprising in view of its wide
ramifications. The word, used by English speakers to refer to the
Eastern Mediterranean and nearby islands, is less used than it once was
for referring to the politics and societies of Middle East systems.
Though precise definitions have varied, "Levant" usually implies an area
from the border of south Turkey to Egypt, including Lebanon, Syria,
Israel, Jordan, Palestinian-controlled territories, and Cyprus. The
terrorists are concerned with this area.

Both
ISIS and ISIL are less meaningful or irrelevant since in June 2014 the
group’s name was changed to “the Islamic State” (IS). This reflected
its territorial conquests in Mosul, Tikrit, and other areas of northern
Iraq. At the moment, the Islamic State controls areas, about 12,000
square miles (the size of Belgium or the state of Maryland), in west
Iraq and in north and east Syria. About eight million Iraqis and
Syrians live in areas it controls. It is the richest terrorist
organization in the world. Its resources come from a variety of
sources, including oil sales from the oil and gas fields it controls,
criminal activities such as robbing banks, intimidating businesses or
blackmail or racketeering, getting protection money from non-Muslim
groups, genuine business transactions, and collecting ransoms for
release of kidnapped or captured Westerners. Its army numbers at least
10,000 militants.

All
this and its belligerent formal statements make the Islamic State the
greatest threat to peace in the world. Its leader, al-Baghdadi, has
made himself the Islamic caliph of the new entity. There is no secret
about the nature and intentions of the State. It says that the sun of
jihad has risen from Aleppo to Diyala. Muslims must gather around the
caliph so that they may return to what they once had been for ages, the
kings of the earth and knights of war.In
ominous words, the world is informed that the legality of all emirates,
groups, states, and organizations will become null by the expansion of
the caliph’s authority and the arrival of its troops into their areas.
One can therefore expect that the caliphate will extend not only over
the whole of the Middle East, but also to Spain. With extravagant
ambition, it may extend to the whole world.

Western
countries and Middle East states have all now recognized that the
Islamic State is a formidable, ruthless foe, with its universal
ambitions and strong military force enhanced by its captured equipment
such as U.S. Humvees and Russian T-55 tanks. The Middle East states
finally appreciate the problem. For some time President Assad, wanting
to defeat and eliminate the Free Syrian Army opposing him, did not
challenge ISIS and even supported it to some extent. Thus, Assad aided
the growth and success of ISIS, which, in return, captured territory
from the FSA and imposed its rule on the area. Finally, the Assad
regime is more willing to act against the major threat and has carried
out a number of airstrikes against some of IS's headquarters.
Similarly, Arab states and wealthy Sunni individuals in the Gulf area
have substantially reduced if not totally ended any funding to the IS.

That flow of money from the Arab states must be ended. They know that
their regimes are in danger from IS.

The
Obama administration, if belatedly, understood the threat, and carried
out airstrikes against ISIS in Iraq. Yet Obama has been unwilling, so
far, to carry out similar strikes against the ISIS positions in Syria.
Even if one does not see or admit that Iraq and Syria are failed
states, no real border exists between them. Politically, one can
understand that for the United States, Syria is a more complex problem
than is Iraq. Nevertheless, the argument for striking Syria is as good
as for striking Iraq. Does Obama need congressional approval for action
in Syria? Though the legal position is not altogether clear, the U.S.
Authorization Act of 2011, which authorizes funding for the defense of
the U.S. and its interests abroad, would justify the decision of Obama
and Congress to use military force there, as it has been used in
Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia.

The
United States perforce has to lead the fight against the Islamist
threat. It has to go beyond humanitarian relief operations and
protecting the 1,200 U.S. personnel in Iraq. It is almost certain to
undertake more airstrikes against the IS command centers, supply lines,
and bases, and strikes that will help the Iraqi forces. One can
envisage action by Special Operations Forces, training, intelligence,
and giving military weapons to the Kurds, and to Syrians, both the Assad
regime and some of his moderate opponents.

It
appears that a coalition formed by the U.S. of at least nine countries
is in formation to counter the IS threat. It is disconcerting that no
Arab state has yet joined that coalition. Nor have the Sunni tribes in
Iraq, some of which supported ISIS because of their resentment against
the Shiite-dominated government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki,
joined the coalition.

In
all of his speeches, President Obama has made clear that U.S. action
will not be unilateral. Now, in spite of difficult political problems,
the U.S. must help in forging alliances among improbable and sometimes
formerly feuding associates, be they Arab Gulf States, Turkey, Saudi
Arabia, Kurds, and even Iran, and lead in the most urgent fight today –
that of Islamist extremism. It is not a simple task, but it is an
essential one.

by Arnold AhlertA federal grand jury investigation going on all summer in St. Paul, Minnesota has been focused on a group of 20-30 Somali-Americans allegedly conspiring to join the fight with ISIS in Syria. Most of the youths being investigated have been going to the Al Farooq Youth and Family Center and mosque in Bloomington, where sources told the Star Tribune that 31-year-old Amir Meshal, an American of Egyptian descent, may have influenced them to join the jihadist movement.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has been aware of Meshal for quite some time. The native New Jerseyan was detained and interrogated by the agency in 2007 in Kenya, following his escape from Somalia. Meshal admits he attended a terrorist training camp in Somalia, but insists he isn’t a terrorist, claiming he went to that war-torn nation to enrich his study of Islam.

A 2009 lawsuit filed by the ACLU on his behalf alleged that after being arrested in a joint U.S.-Kenyan-Ethiopian operation along the Somalia-Kenyan border, Meshal was transferred between jails in Kenya, Somalia and Ethiopia without ever being charged or having access to counsel. During that time he was allegedly interrogated by two Supervising Special Agents of the FBI more than 30 times, during which he said he was repeatedly threatened with “torture, forced disappearance and other serious harm” in order to coerce a confession. He was ultimately brought back to the United States and released without being charged.

Despite the ACLU’s contention that Meshal’s Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights were violated, along with the Torture Victim Protection Act of 1991, the case was dismissed by Judge Emmet G. Sullivan of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on June 13. Despite buying the government’s argument that national security considerations abroad preclude judicial remedies for the mistreatment Meshal allegedly endured, Sullivan, a Clinton appointee, was distressed by the decision. “The facts alleged in this case and the legal questions presented are deeply troubling,” he contended, before conceding his hands were tied. “Although Congress has legislated with respect to detainee rights, it has provided no civil remedies for US citizens subject to the appalling mistreatment Mr. Meshal has alleged against officials of his own government.”

This past summer, Meshal began occasionally showing up at the Al Farooq Youth and Family Center, where hundreds of Muslims show up for prayer on Fridays at one of the largest mosques in the Twin Cities. He was known for having lots of money and driving a fancy BMW. In June, a parent at the center complained about Meshal promoting radical Islam. That aroused the suspicion of mosque director Hyder Aziz, who was so concerned about Meshal’s intentions he went to the police that same month and obtained a no-trespass order. “I made a decision that he needs to be removed from the premises,” Aziz said. “I will call police if he ever shows up and they will arrest him.”

It may be too late. Federal authorities believe that at least a dozen Somali men and three women have traveled to the Middle East to join in jihad directly, or aid the terrorists in some capacity, including two people who attended Al Farooq and disappeared, presumably to Syria. One is a 19-year-old Somali woman from St. Paul who was not identified. The other is 20-year-old Abdi Mohamed Nur who played basketball at the center and attended the Bloomington mosque. He disappeared around the same time the no trespass order against Meshal was issued.

In June the FBI prevented another teen from boarding a plane at the Minneapolis-St.Paul International Airport because they believed his final destination was Syria. He had been dropped off at school by his father, after which he allegedly changed clothes and headed to the airport with a suitcase. When the FBI arrested him they made it clear to his family they were less interested in him than who recruited him.

Yet as the grand jury investigation has revealed, the level of distrust among members of the community is impeding the investigation. “The relationship between our community and law enforcement has been, at times, very tense and full of suspicion,” said Omar Jamal, director of the St. Paul-based nonprofit American Friends of Somalia. “We’re improving, but we’re not there yet. Both sides are coming to realize that in order to stop these recruitments, we have to work together. One side can’t accomplish the task without the other.”

Nonetheless, many of those who have been subpoenaed are invoking their Fifth Amendment rights and refusing to answer questions.

Hashi Shafi, director of the Somali Action Alliance in Minneapolis, claims many people want to speak, but are “scared.” Yet Shafi and other community leaders are urging families who have lost children to jihad recruitment to speak up. “We are the victims of this violent extremism so we have to stand up and lead these kinds of efforts,” he explained.

In the meantime, Meshal himself remains at large. The 18-year-old youth stopped at the airport in June has accused him of being his recruiter. The youth’s attorney upped the ante, accusing Meshal of being a double-agent for the FBI and ISIS. The lawsuit filed by the ACLU provides some insight into the accusation: Meshal claimed the FBI tried to turn him into a government informant, taking him off the government’s no-fly list if he cooperated. And while the youth’s lawyer is sticking with that assertion, the teen himself will not testify against Meshal unless he is granted immunity.

Last month two Americans from Minnesota, Douglas McCain and Abdirahmaan Muhumed, aka Abdifatah Ahmed, were killed fighting for ISIS. In a shocking revelation that underscores America’s continuing vulnerability to terror attacks, the Metropolitan Airports Commission conceded that Ahmed held a Secure Identification Display Area (SIDA) security badge, granting him airport security clearance and unfettered access to the tarmac and planes to perform his job as an aircraft fueler and cleaner. He performed the jobs intermittently between 2001 and 2011.

Shafi and other area leaders are apparently committed to rooting out the extremism afflicting their community. They have begun holding meetings with the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Department and Department of Homeland Security’s civil liberties division. An additional meeting is being planned with the U.S. Transportation Security Administration and airport administrators. U.S. Attorney Andy Luger is also meeting with local imams on a regular basis “to develop strong personal and professional relationships with leaders in the Somali community,” in an effort to stop those “who seek to recruit Somali and other youth into a life of crime, violence and terror.”

Minnesota Republican Michele Bachmann will introduce legislation aimed at preventing any citizen who goes overseas to engage in jihad from returning to America. “In my opinion, they should lose their American citizenship,” she explained. “Because at that point, you have turned against the United States. ISIS has declared the United States as their enemy. Once you join an enemy army … you should, by definition, lose your American citizenship, therefore your passport. You should have no ability to get back into the United States.”

All of these efforts are well-intended and may also be effective—up to a point. “For some, terrifyingly, the jihad has become a badge of radical chic,” writes journalist Alex Massie. “A lifestyle choice like any other.”

It is doubtful that the Obama administration is up to the task of deterring people from this lifestyle. Obama’s newfound commitment to take seriously the threat of ISIS has a troubling backdrop — namely, the administration’s ongoing determination to avoid identifying the threat as Islamic terror, Obama’s initial dismissal of ISIS as a “javee” organization, and a 2012 purge of the FBI’s Counterterrorism Analytic Lexicon, eliminating the words “Muslim,” “Islam,” “Muslim Brotherhood,” “Hamas,” and “sharia” in the process.

Absent a radical change of direction by this president and his administration, America will remain fertile ground for terrorist recruiters and their willing followers. Amir Meshal is ostensibly one of them. It is virtually certain there are many more.

Shortly after he founded the
Muslim Brotherhood in 1928, Hassan al-Banna made very clear what jihad
was about: "It is the nature of Islam to dominate, not to be dominated,
to impose its laws on all nations and to extend its power to the entire
world."No idea how an inner struggle can be achieved with stones and missiles.The "Turkish jihadist" is a part-time jihadist, playing the jihadist
at home for domestic consumption and the blessed peacemaker in front of
major world powers.

Although it is a common male name in Turkish (Cihat), the Turks, and
apparently many others too, have a confused mind about the Arabic word
"jihad." Most Turks have felt contempt for "the jihadist terrorists" of
al-Qaeda. They feel the same for the "jihadist/Salafist" Islamic State
that captured large swathes of Syrian and Iraqi territory this summer,
and took hostage 49 Turks, including the consul general, at their
consulate compound in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul on June 11. At
the same time, thousands of Turks identified themselves as "jihadists,"
just like the IS's men, when they took to the streets to protest
Palestinian casualties and attack Israeli diplomatic missions in July
and August.

In 2013, now Prime Minister (then foreign minister) Ahmet Davutoglu
sanitized jihad when he said that: 1) There is no connection between
jihad (literally, "struggle" in Arabic) and terrorism, 2) Jihad is the
name of fighting for our honor, and 3) For us, jihad is a sacred notion.
Apparently, the Turks had a jihadist for a foreign minister.

Davutoglu's understanding of jihad was probably about how the Quran
mentions it 41 times and what the word referred to a millennium ago: an
inner, spiritual struggle combined with an outer physical struggle for
salvation. In modern history and today, however, jihad is a physical
struggle against the enemies of Islam, and it can be violent (just
jihad) and non-violent (diplomatic jihad, for instance).

Davutoglu said in 2013 that "any attempt to link jihad to violence
and terror would be using it like neo-cons and pro-Israelis in America
use it."

Ironically, more or less on the same day as Davutoglu denied any
connection between jihad and terror and warned everyone "not to taint
this notion," a prominent Islamist visiting Istanbul reminded everyone
what jihad meant. Mohammed al-Hindi, Islamic Jihad's leader, said: "Our
jihad began with stones, and goes on with state-of-the-art missiles." It
would be more sensible to vouch for al-Hindi than for Davutoglu, as
al-Hindi's organization even seems to have a copyright on the sacred
notion that jihad is "Islamic," and it fights for jihad.

Shortly he founded the Muslim Brotherhood in 1928 (31 years before
Davutoglu was born), Hassan al-Banna made very clear what jihad was
about: "It is the nature of Islam to dominate, not to be dominated, to
impose its laws on all nations and to extend its power to the entire
world."

Al-Banna was certainly not modest in his goals, and his followers
seem no less ambitious. One of political Islam's founding fathers and
prominent ideologues, Sayed Qutb, also a Muslim Brotherhood member,
declared all non-Muslims to be "infidels" -- a term which justified
fighting them.

More recently, a 2004 fatwa by Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi simply made
it a religious obligation for Muslims to abduct and kill U.S. citizens
in Iraq. The fatwa advocated a war of Arabism and Islamic jihad against
the British and the Jews.

Who
is the authority on the meaning of "jihad" -- Muslim Brotherhood
founder Hassan al-Banna (left), its current spiritual leader Yusuf
al-Qaradawi (middle), or Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu?

And, according to Hamas's charter, "the only way to engage in the
[inherently irreconcilable struggle:] jihad between Judaism and Islam,
between truth and falsehood is through Islam and by means of jihad until
victory or martyrdom."

It should be clear to anyone with a primary school education that the
gentlemen al-Banna, Qutb, al-Qaradawi, and the Muslim Brotherhood and
Hamas, are not referring to a spiritual inner struggle for salvation. No
idea how an inner struggle for salvation can be achieved with stones
and missiles.

Last January, thousands of Erdogan fans waving colorful placards
filled rally-grounds. One placard read, "You'll never walk alone;"
another greeted "Our hero Erdogan." And one particularly popular slogan,
accepted with smiles and thanks by Erdogan, was "Jihadist Erdogan"
which prompted this columnist to write an op-ed piece, "Jihadist Erdogan."
One could have gone to jail for calling Erdogan "a jihadist," but his
party loyalists had now perfectly legitimized the description.

But once again I was wrong to assume when Turkish Islamists like to
be called jihadist and when they do not. I had angered the foreign
minister. He told a TV interviewer, without naming names, why I had
called Erdogan by the name that the prime minister greeted with smiles
and thanks: "This is the crusader's mentality. Or a reflection of the
neo-orientalist mentality. This is an explicit attack, not only on the
prime minister, but also on the Islamic civilization and faith."

Furthermore, "It is an assault," Davutoglu asserted, "to cause our
prime minister to be mentioned by a different code, especially by
translating that word [the original Turkish word –'mücahit'] into
English as 'jihadist.'"

So, it was a compliment to call the prime minister by an adjective,
but an explicit assault on him -- and the whole Islamic civilization
--by referring to him with one of the only two possible English
translations of the same adjective. Clearly, this was not a case of
"lost in translation."

Could the problem be about being a jihadist? No. I have known
hundreds of proud Arab jihadists who love to be called jihadists. What
makes the case of a "Turkish jihadist" unique, then? Could the problem
be about being called a jihadist in English only?

The pragmatic and shrewd Turkish jihadist is programmed to maintain a
delicate equilibrium where he feels that he maximizes political
benefits: He loves to be called a jihadist at home and on the Arab
Street, but not on the Western Avenue. He is, instinctively, a part-time
jihadist, playing the jihadist at home for domestic consumption and the
blessed peacemaker in front of major world powers.

Burak Bekdil, based in Ankara, is a Turkish columnist for the Hürriyet Daily News and a Fellow at the Middle East Forum.

Chief Military Advocate
General Maj. Gen. Danny Efroni said the Israel Defense Forces would
investigate the alleged crimes that Israeli troops committed during
Operation Protective Edge. Who was the first to dismiss this move and
ignore the fact that the Military Police was already investigating two
criminal cases? Human rights group B'Tselem. How surprising. This
organization, whose director, Hagai El-Ad, has essentially become a
Hamas apologist by refusing to call it a terrorist group, is convinced
the IDF is at fault. He called the new probe a cover-up.

By assuming this
posture, B'Tselem says that the U.N. panel that was appointed to
investigate the operation is more credible than the IDF investigators.
This, despite its anti-Israeli chairman, William Schabas. In fact,
B'Tselem has not come out against Schabas in any discernible way.

B'Tselem is one of the
senior members of an anti-IDF coalition. Its members include Haaretz
contributors. When Gideon Levy, a columnist at the paper, penned a piece
that criticized Israeli Air Force pilots ("Lowest Deeds from Loftiest
Heights"), many readers said they would end their subscription. Another
Haaretz reporter, Amira Hass, recently wrote that Hamas would be wise to
reject Israel's demands during the Cairo cease-fire talks.

Another member of the
coalition is J Street. Although it calls itself a pro-Israel lobby, it
said the U.S. should punish Israel for appropriating 4,000 dunams (1.5
square miles) in Gush Etzion. Yes, this move was ill-conceived and
wrong, but I am still baffled by J Street's reaction. How can a
pro-Israel lobby seek punitive steps against the very state it is
lobbying for? Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas must be
telling himself, "My work here is done."

On one end of the
spectrum, you have Jeremy Ben-Ami, the founder and President of J
Street, advocating punitive action toward Israel. On the other end,
there is the EU, which said that despite its disapproval of the Gush
Etzion decision, an economic boycott was off the table. What a
fascinating dissonance. As usual, "Your destroyers and they that made
you waste shall go forth from you" (Isaiah 49:17).

El-Ad and Co. have
every right to make their views heard. To quote Voltaire, "I disapprove
of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."
But they are guided by a flawed logic. El-Ad, Levy, Hass and Ben-Ami all
want Israel to shirk its duties when it comes to investigating
Operation Protective Edge. They would rather Israel wait for a hostile
verdict by those who could not care less about the plight of displaced
Gazans and who want to inflict harm on Israel. El-Ad and Co. have hurt
those good people here in Israel who would like to see the IDF uphold
moral standards during wartime.

We can at least take
comfort in the fact that we do not rely on El-Ad and Co. Neither are we
dependent on the right-wing extremists who say that upholding the rule
of law and exercising self restraint is debilitating left-wing ideology.
They too have been critical of Efroni.

Back in the day, Prime
Minister David Ben-Gurion recited a Nathan Alterman poem about an
immoral IDF soldier who killed an innocent Arab woman during the War of
Independence. The poem lambasts the Israeli fighter for shooting the
woman in the heat of the battle. Those words, delivered from the Knesset
podium, set a moral code for Israel to follow. Israelis have to uphold
ethical standards so that their conscience is free, not because they
would like to counter a malicious U.N. secretary-general who is bent on
embarrassing them.

We need to investigate Operation
Protective Edge for two reasons. The first, to make sure we shed our
immorality. The second -- to determine the exact number of fake U.N.
buildings that served terrorists. These supposed "health facilities,"
which housed the entrances to the tunnels that were used to kill our
beloved soldiers, were made to look as if they were run by the U.N.
Relief and Works Agency.

by James LongstreetIt
has been said that “All wars are religious.” In some instances this
point is difficult to make. But in so many others, it is glaringly
obvious. To suggest that religion is not integral to the current
conflicts in the Mideast is folly of the highest degree. To stand before
a nation and assert that ISIS is not acting on their beliefs is a gross
misrepresentation.

There
are some things in this world that seem to hold, and one such item is
that terrorists tell you exactly why they are doing what they are doing.
Their “cause” is of the utmost to them and they will do all to make
certain that the “cause” is advertised in full. One does not have to
believe they are correct or justified. However, it is indisputable that
they always want their “word” to be accurately portrayed. It is
fundamental to their mission.

ISIS
declares themselves soldiers for Islam. They seek a caliphate
controlled Mideast, a state. To declare, as the President has declared,
that something less is true belongs in the wishful thinking column. Just
as Obama declared that the world owes so much to the Golden Age of
Islam, he can’t grasp the fact that this war is a religious one.Recall how we were told by Obama that the world, civilization, owes a “debt to Islam."

The
debate on whether we in fact do or do not is one for a different time.
But not so debatable is the fact that “if” there was some type of
“golden age” in the Muslim world, it halted long ago, abruptly and for
inexplicable reasons. Those who descended from the “golden age," as the
President refers, routinely rely on a hole in the ground for a toilet,
treat their women like an NFL running back does in an elevator, and
decapitate non believers for video consumption.

President
Obama has declared that ISIS (ISIL) is not really Islamic and that they
really don’t have a “state." Apparently we are being prompted to drop
those notions.

We
should know by now, almost 100 years after the Mideast countries were
drawn up by fatigued post WWI authorities, that those of the region have
little regard for lines drawn by unauthorized European heathens and
infidels. For the President to declare ISIS has no state is to assume
some definition of “state” that these people have little regard.

Obama
suggests that Muslims, ISIS, making war in the name of religion is not
the case in this instance. What is the case, however, is that merely
because the idea that ISIS is religiously driven is incompatible with
the President’s belief system, it does not make it untrue. Below is a
list of Muslim conquests and dates.

One
must wonder where Obama went to school. He must have missed this
lesson. Muslims making religious war is nothing new to the world, and
to pretend that this is not yet another instance is unrealistic. The
pretending that Major Nadal Hassan was not religiously motivated in his
murders is now joined by another misguided imaginary perception. James LongstreetSource: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2014/09/they_arent_who_they_say_they_are_really.html Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

"We will do what needs to be
done to protect ourselves against terrorism," says Justice Minister
Tzipi Livni

|

Photo credit: AP

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu convened a
special session on Wednesday to discuss the growing threat to Israel by
radical terror organizations, such as Islamic State group (ISIS), which
are operating in the Middle East.

Livni is expected to release a legal brief on
Thursday, outlining a new bill that would bar Israeli citizens and
residents from participating in any activity related to organizations
that have been designated by that state as terrorist groups.

As part of the bill, the defense minister will
release an administrative order listing designated terrorist
organizations, as well as the areas and countries in which they are
known to operate. Israelis would be barred from having any contact with
these groups -- in or outside Israel.

Israeli citizens or residents found to be affiliated with such groups may face up to three years in jail.

The government's legislation efforts are the
result of information gathered by Israel's intelligence agencies,
indicating that several Arab Israelis have recently joined rebel forces in Syria.

Several rebel groups fighting Syrian President
Bashar Assad have known affiliations with radical jihadist groups, such
as al-Qaida and the Islamic State group, which provide them with
weapons and training.

The Justice Ministry also plans to introduce
legislation meant to combat various expressions of support for
organizations the likes of ISIS, including waving their flags in public, or the posting of pro-terrorism statements on social media platforms.

Israel's intelligence agencies, for their
part, have already begun increasing their efforts to locate and
apprehend ISIS operatives in Israel, as well as thwarting any attempt by
the Islamic State group to form local terror cells.

"We will do what needs to be done to protect
ourselves against terrorism. This is what every Western nation is doing.
We won't allow [ISIS] to get a foothold [in Israel]," Livni said after
the meeting.

"The new situation requires we create the
mechanism necessary to deal with it without delay. For example, we need
to adapt Israeli law to the developments we see in the international
arena."

The justice minister further said that "solid
legislation and strong statements against ISIS are all well and good,
but they are not enough," adding that Israel has to "reignite the
negotiations with the Palestinian Authority to create a strong
collaboration with Arab countries that view [ISIS] as a common enemy.

"The peace process will help us fight this
mutual threat. Those who don't want to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict are the ones who will eventually drive us to a bloody conflict
with decapitators."

Livni added that she believes Israel has to appeal to the U.N.
Security Council "and demand a binding resolution that would stop Hamas'
rearmament, a resolution that would stop the funding of terrorism, and
that would demand the Palestinian Authority, which recognizes Israel, be
reinstated in the Gaza Strip."